


Nothing is Ever Really Left Behind

by Syrus07



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Flashbacks, Honesty between best friends, Jake is just as insecure as Rich, Jake's messed up past, M/M, more about Jake than RichJake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-08 00:32:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11070318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrus07/pseuds/Syrus07
Summary: Jake knows that after everything Rich had felt comfortable enough to tell him, he has to repay the favor by finally opening up to someone about what exactly happened between him and his parents.





	Nothing is Ever Really Left Behind

“The real Richard Goranski” was amazing. After everything with the Squip, he not only remained friends with Jake, but he also trusted him with the truth. With only a fraction of a second of hesitation, Rich told him every detail of his past, everything he had wanted to say, but hadn’t because of the douchebag computer that had been in his head. He bared his soul to Jake after going through hell almost entirely alone and he trusted him to stay. The least Jake could do was the same.

He hadn’t spent years hiding bruises or dealing with an older brother who ran away because he couldn’t take it anymore, but he used to have an entire house filled with secrets. Every empty room echoed a story he would never have the courage to tell. The actual house was gone, reduced to a burnt foundation; but all of those skeletons were still there, except now they were crammed into the closet of a cheap hotel room. Rich deserved to see inside and decide if he still wanted to stay. 

Jake knew that doing this meant going all the way. So he bought hair dye that was pretty close to his natural color and spent an hour attempting to slip back into his old accent. He’d been all over the country and was going on five years in New Jersey, but he still had to concentrate to sound like he was from the east. They were small changes, but after all that Rich had given him, he deserved to get the full picture. Besides, he’d been meaning to go back to blond. 

Rich almost laughed when he opened the door and saw the hair, but he held it back and just smiled. “I thought you were going to tell me a story, not get a makeover.” 

“I’m introducing you to the real me, and I’m actually blond.” he shrugged with his hands in his pockets, hoping that Rich wouldn’t overreact to the slight difference in the way he spoke.

Or course, Rich’s smile grew, “Holy crap, are you from Canada?” He grabbed his hand and started leading him up to his room, “If you’ve been hiding that you’re actually Canadian-”

He flopped down on Rich’s bed and sighed, “I’m not Canadian. I’m from Montana.” When Rich joined him he sat up a little straighter, “ I guess that’s a good enough place to start this whole thing. I grew up in Northern Montana under the name Clay Hynde and I was almost seven when the police showed up for the first time.”

* * *

 

His parents had gone out to the store leaving Clay alone for the very first time. He was proud of himself for proving to them that he didn’t need a babysitter and that residual excitement was enough to stop him from worrying about where they were. But the clock inched around and around and cartoons turned into news that turned into dramatic adult programing about people in suits. 

When the digital clock under the television displayed 9:25 and Clay had eaten his third sleeve of Ritz crackers, there was a loud knock on the door. A man began to shout and there were bright lights shining through the windows, but despite all of the new activity, Clay’s world narrowed to his front door. 

There weren’t many people in their area of Montana. They were so far north they were basically in Saskatchewan and their next neighbor wasn’t for at least a mile, so the only man who should’ve been knocking on that door was Clay’s father, but that wasn’t his dad’s voice. And when the door came down, it wasn’t his father on the other side.

The police called him abandoned and shoved him into the arms of a young rookie who was grateful to have a position outside of the house owned by two criminals who had made in onto international lists. “Hey, I’m Joey.” His voice was soft and sweet, but the best part was that he sounded just as nervous as Clay felt.

“I’m Clay.” He watched the police officers bustling around him. Police officers arrested bad guys, and they seemed very interested in his parents, “Are Mommy and Daddy coming home?”

Joey sighed and squeezed his shoulders, “No, kid.” 

He didn’t cry, just nodded and accepted the hug that Joey offered. It wasn’t that he was a tough child who could take bad news, he was just a kid who hadn’t had anything bad happen to him yet. So, he just didn’t believe Joey. His parents would be back; they would always be back. 

* * *

 

“I was sent to foster care after that,” Jake didn’t look up at Rich. He couldn’t.

But he soon felt a hand squeeze his knee and heard him say, “I’m sorry. That must’ve been rough for a kid to go through, especially when you were so young.” He shifted closer so that their thighs were touching, “How does foster care lead to New Jersey?”

Jake let out a sharp, humorless laugh, “They came back...well, in they eyes of the State of Montana, the Gallagher's came back.”

* * *

 

 

Even after a year and a half in foster care, Clay was the only kid who did not want to be adopted. He knew that his parents were out there and that they loved him. They would come back for him. As soon as the police lost interest, they would come and pick him up and they could just move up to Saskatchewan and be a family again. 

The “parents,” Jim and Emilee, knew all about his parents crimes, but they promised not to tell any of the kids about it. Clay was grateful because he didn’t want any of them to know. He didn’t want them to start saying mean things about his parents just because they broke a few rules. They weren’t bad people. So every time someone asked about his parents, he’d lie.

“Those are my parents.” He said, pointing to Belle and the Beast dancing across the television screen in all their pixelated glory. It was a quick lie and not one of his best, but he stuck to it despite the jeers that came from everyone else in the room. “They are! They got married and had me.”

All of the older kids would make fun of him and call him princess or a beast, but it was better than having them shouting the truth at him. The little kids also went a long way to making him feel better about the teasing. They believed him and wanted to know everything about his parents and his life.

He taught them little bits of French that he’d actually learned from his parents, and made up stories about all their favorite characters and being a royal in the modern age. 

“Are you going to marry a princess?” Madison, a four year old girl with more freckles than there were stars in the sky, asked him one day.

Clay immediately pulled a face, “I’m not really a princess person.” he didn’t see the implication at age eight, but the other children did. 

Thankfully, the Gallaghers arrived before the “teasing” got that much worse. They swooped in and tried to take him away, but these people looked nothing like his parents and Clay fought against the adoption with everything he had.

Then, Mr. Gallagher hit him on the shoulder. “Clayton Franklin Hynde, it is just hair dye. Now, stop crying before your mother had a heart attack.” Of course, international thieves and money launderers would also be masters of disguise.

Clay stopped hiding and they fled to Saskatchewan. He loved being right.

 

* * *

 

“They took you on the run with them?” Rich was now pressing their shoulders together, trying to comfort Jake while letting him tell the story. “I know they’re your parents, but that’s fucked up dude.”

“I’ve stopped forgiving them for the bad things they’ve done,” Jake didn’t sound right to his own ears. He was too quiet compared to the persona he’d perfected. “But they got me out of foster care, and after three years on the run, they got me here.”

Rich squeezed his thigh and left it there, “You don’t have to keep going.”

“There’s not much more to tell.” But this was the part that could make Rich leave.

* * *

 

 

The next three years held more names than Clay could count. They bounced between large US cities, where he assumed his parents did business, and small towns in either the Northern United States or Canada. It wasn’t exactly suitable for a young kid, but he enjoyed himself.

They were camping out in Manhattan when they heard about a flight that went down in the Pacific. A couple and their son were taking a small plane from island to island when they got knocked out of the sky and lost at sea. They weren’t legally dead, but the efforts to find them had stopped. 

Somehow, some seedy character was able to give Clay and his family all the information on these poor people. Todd and Veronica Dillinger and their son Jake. Jake was only a little older than Clay, a January birthday instead of a September one. He would’ve been eleven. 

“Clay, sweetie, we’re going to move permanently this time. There’s a house just across the river in New Jersey that can be ours. You’ll be able to grow up and never have to worry about the police or running ever again.” She smiled brightly, as if this wasn’t the worse thing they had ever done.

As soon as everything went through and was finalized, there would be no change of those people ever being found. Why would people look for a family that was no longer missing? Clay felt sick just thinking about the fact that he was going living a dead boy’s life, but then they got to New Jersey.

Jake Dillinger went to a real middle school. He played lacrosse and made friends both on and off the team. He even had a best friend, like he always saw on TV. Jake Dillinger had a life that Clay had always dreamed of, and he really wanted to keep it. So, with only minimal dry heaving, and enough guilt to last a lifetime, Jake made a vow to himself that this was it for him. He wasn’t going to move or change his name every again.

Everything was perfect for a few months, but one day Jake came home to an empty house and a manilla envelope on the dining room table. It contained Jake’s birth certificate, social security card, four credit cards with specific bank information, a contact list that included everything from the town fire department to people who worked with his parents, and a guide to living alone at age eleven. His parents had left him again, and this time, he knew they weren’t coming back.

* * *

 

 

“...and they never did. I’ve been alone for a little over five years now and living off of the money my folks tucked away for me.” he settled back so that he was practically cuddled into Rich’s side. “It’s been tough, but nobody looks too closely at the perfect All-American kid. I do activities to keep me busy and so I don’t get lonely. I throw parties so gossip spreads to block out anything that could be true. Since I was eleven, the closest anyone ever came to knowing the truth was Chloe, and she only knows that my parents were crooks.”

Rich’s arms wrapped tightly around him and covered him in a protected feeling. “Thank you for trusting me with this.” He said and Jake smiled.

Maybe telling the truth for once was more that enough to make everything up to Rich. And if being honest led to them being curled up and practically spooning, Jake would make sure to do it more often because his best friend wasn’t going anywhere.


End file.
